Boots (Avenues) had a “Buy 3, Get 3 Free” promo going on, around the beginning of August. Since my latest obsession seems to be Hair Care, I decided to take advantage of that opportunity and snag some things from the new “Beach Collection” from Umberto Giannini. I also got some stuff from the all new Hair Care Range from Soap&Glory and just the one thing from Charles Worthington.

I didn’t do any “research” beforehand and just grabbed stuff based on the cutesy packaging and fun names, and what they claimed to do. As such, I found some of them kinda’ disappointing. That said, I’m not about to open up all of them in one go (not that crazy) so I’ve only gotten around to using 3 out of the 6, for now.

Even though I’d already ordered from Nordstrom at the start of June (dis), I placed another order at the end of June, mainly because I wanted a secondHair Care Sample Pack (dis) which happened to still be available (at the time). After this order though, I think I’m gonna’ cool it with Nordstrom (for a bit). It’s just too hot to be ordering stuff online.

Anyways, I got something from Alterna and two more somethings from Bumble and Bumble. Other than the Hair Care Sample Pack there was an Alterna Gift With Purchase and Bumble and Bumble Gift With Purchase which included deluxe samples from each brand! Yaaay!

I also got some more Bar Soaps and Candles to qualify for the Fragrance Sample Pack (dis). I was actually interested in purchasing Mojave Ghost from Byredo and Philosykos from Diptyque as Perfumes, but it was way too hot to risk (the heat might alter the contents and therefore the scent). So, I got them as Bar Soapsinstead. Plus, this way, I could “test” the scents first, rather than buying them as Perfumes and possibly ending up hating them.

The Makeup stuff was from Benefit and I only got them because I really, really had my heart set on the Benefit Gift With Purchase that came with a very, very cuteBenefit Clear Tote Bag and some samples. Also, it helped bump up the total of my order so I could qualify for the latest Sample Pack (dis).

For whatever reason, I’ve never even glanced at the Hair Care section on the Nordstrom website, up until the weather became too hot to order Perfume and Makeup. That said, I’ve always lusted after the Bumble and Bumble Surf Spray (possibly for decades), but just never knew how to get my hands on that stuff. I found it, along with a whole bunch of other interesting Hair Care products over at Nordstrom. The more I browsed, the more stuff I lusted after! Hair Care was quickly shaping up to be my newest obsession!

Other than Bumble and Bumble, they also had DevaCurl (another “Curly Girl Method” approved brand) and Living Proof and Drybar and R+Co (hella’ cute packaging!) and Oribe (the one everyone seem to lose their minds over) and Alterna and so much more! I kinda’ wanted… everything! To be fair though, I’d gotten gotten samples from most of those brands at one point or another (mostly from Nordstrom), but Hair Care hadn’t really been on my radar, at that point in time. However, once they came out with thisHair Care Sample Pack for the month of June, with the pre-requisite of purchasing $85 worth of Hair Care to qualify, I jumped on that deal! It was kismet!

The Sample Pack contained several Hair Care samples of stuff that I actually wanted to try! In fact, the full sizes of many of those samples were already in my online shopping cart, including the Bumble and Bumble Surf Spray! Now that I could try out the samples first, I quickly deleted the fuller sizes from my shopping cart. Honestly, the Hair Care Sample Pack could not have come at a better time! Again, I just loveNordstrom!

Unfortunately, once again, something had leaked all over everything while in-transit, but that’s okay because… Hair Care Samples, yaaaay!

Get a Free Gift with Your $100 Beauty or Fragrance Purchase. Plus, when you spend $150 on beauty or fragrance, you’ll also receive a Bonus Gift.

I wasn’t planning on placing yet another online order with Nordstrom during Ramadan, especially since I was somewhat broke (those Ramadan Kaftans cost a pretty penny). However, there was a deal (more on that in the next post) and I got suckered into placing a “smaller” order lol Since my order was a little over $100, I qualified for the May Sample Pack.

The Makeup-y Samples included something from Fresh (lucky) while the Fragrance Samples included Alien by Mugler (super lucky) and the Hair Care Samples included stuff from AvedaandLiving Proof (super super lucky)!

I’ll be going over all the samples that arrived in the May Sample Pack, below…

I contacted Nordstrom through their Live Chat App (up on their website) to double check something on a recent order (couldn’t remember if I’d used the code or not, but turns out that I did), when I was informed that I also qualified for the Natural Skincare Sample Pack, before they promptly sent it over. They had this whole Natural Beauty Event (eco-friendly, vegan, etc…) going on during the month of April and the Natural Skincare Sample Pack (as shown) was the Gift with Purchase during that month.

I’d like to say it was “free”, but they sent it over separately, which meant I had to pay extortionate shipping charges (from my U.S. Aramex mailbox to Kuwait) for one measly pack… of samples lol I understand that it’s not possible for them to group all the items into a single shipment, but I sure wish it was! To add insult to injury, everything arrived sopping wet (something had spilled in transit). It was my first real “incident” with Nordstrom, whom my experience with, has been nothing but perfect, up to this point. That said, there was a bunch of cool stuff in the Natural Skincare Sample Pack!

Call of Fruity… as in Call of Duty… seriously? -_- What is this blasphemy? Not cool. Not cool at all! Call of Duty is sacred!

Now that we got that out of the way, there were several new displays over at Boots. They’d moved the Oh K! Beauty to a stand-alone umm… stand, by the entrance to Boots (pics at the bottom of this post) and they had a Soap & Glory display featuring the new Call of Fruity Collection (so wrong!) and another one featuring a bunch of Hair Care products all with “humorous” funny-punny names. The Call of Fruity display was two rows of identical products (same lay-out, same everything) whereas the Hair Care display had more of a variety.

In the interest of full disclosure, I did give the Call of Fruity stuff a sniff, but I didn’t like the way they smelled. As such, I didn’t end up buying anything. I’ll go over them anyways, for those who might be interested.